The present invention relates to a drive for high and low temperature mechanical oscillators. In particular, the present invention relates to a magnetic drive for mechanical oscillators.
The present invention provides a reliable method and mechanically robust components to excite a mechanical oscillator to operate at high temperature to develop commercial sensor applications based on these devices. These devices have numerous applications including but not limited to: Level sensors; corrosion/erosion monitoring; density/viscosity measurements.
The current available sensors are driven by piezoelectric crystals that typically have low temperature Curie points. The piezoelectric crystal Curie point limits the device operating temperature. In addition, the devices have variable performance depending on temperature cycles due to mechanical changes in the mounting that occur during thermal expansion. Further, the piezoelectric technology is based mostly on ceramic materials that can crack and may be difficult to make electrical connections that survive temperature cycling and/or high temperature. Inductively driven tuning fork resonator devices of the present invention may operate at high temperature, substantially reducing the limitations associated with piezoelectric crystal drivers.